too much deficit reduction, too quickly, and we could push the economy into a recession. that's just dumb. >> it is very dumb. now, you've been in many, many, many of these negotiations? you've been in the backrooms of a lot of the ongoing negotiations, now, do you think they have any chance of getting a deal before the first of the year? >> i'm always hopeful, but i'm less hopeful as every day passes. the problem is the rhetoric that's flying back and forth between republicans and democrats sounds like we're still having an election that it never was over. i think that now -- now that we've had an election, and the american public has spoken, whatever they meant, it's time for the politicians to get together, come together as starbucks is saying, and get something done. nobody's going to get everything they want. but it's so much more important to solve the problem than for one side or the other to get what they want or blame the other. the atmosphere is just wrong. >> when you hear the argument for going over the cliff. when it's been told to me by both democrats and re